"But here's the point to get."

This as a bit of a tag-along to my previous post... We're moving to America of the late-1930s, a vastly different work, but thoughts on educating girls to more or less wake up to themselves brought Eugene O'Neill's Iceman Cometh to mind time and again, and though I might throw a bit of it out here, just for thought.

Through much of the play, itinerant salesman and all-around jolly guy Hickey prods his fellow barflies to wake up to themselves, to confess their shortcomings and let go of their pipe dreams, the unrealizable ideals that protect them from fully facing life's harsh truths. Meanwhile, his fellows shift uncomfortably between adoration of the Hickey they've long known--that is, the Hickey ever-willing to foster their delusions--and resentment toward the Hickey who now threatens them with the truth.

During the play's second act, Hickey attempts to explain his actions to the bar's denizens, protesting that this tearing away of delusions is for their own good:

But here's the point to get. I swear I'd never act like I have if I wasn't absolutely sure it will be worth it to you in the end, after you're rid of the damned guilt that makes you lie to yourselves you're something you're not, and the remorse that nags at you and makes you hide behind lousy pipe dreams about tomorrow. You'll be in a today where there is no yesterday or tomorrow to worry about. You won't give a damn what you are any more. I wouldn't say this unless I know, Brothers and Sisters. This peace is real! It's a fact! (p. 129)

Point being, so far as the post regarding Fielding's Governess is concerned, that realization of one's own faults seems to be linked to happiness, even to a sort of freedom. Only once delusions have been broken can life carry on... Or so Fielding seems in some ways to imply, and so Hickey here suggests.

Yet The Iceman Cometh has much to say beyond this point, and the matter of life beyond delusion is, well, a bit tricky. Whether the promoted peace is real, whether Hickey's mission of truth-telling proves effective... Well. We've not time to get into that, now, but we might note that there are a few pitfalls, and the recognition of one's shortcomings is no guaranteed path toward an improved life.

Again, a bit (a lot of a bit) of a leap from Fielding, but it was on the mind, so there you have it. Hickey's education methods... They are perhaps not so effective (or are perhaps too terribly effective, hrm).

Oh, and should anyone be at all interested in watching the scene noted above, check out this clip from the 1960 recording of the play, directed by Sidney Lumet. (Honestly, do; it's well worth the look.)

Note: The quotation cited is from the 2006 Yale Nota Bene publication of The Iceman Cometh.